The meaning of MKII (Mark II in full) will be easy, or at least intuitive, for many. Less obvious, perhaps, are the history and scope of the above designation. As far as Ricable is concerned, the cables bearing the MKII abbreviation are the HDMI Supreme AI cable and, more recently, the Magnus Power and Speaker cables, both of which feature shielding, and other minor enhancements, in their upgraded model.
What is the meaning of MKII?
The word Mark, followed by a number, often Roman, is used to indicate the degree of advancement of a model in a given series. We are not, therefore, talking about a new model outright. Rather, we are referring to what is referred to in the automotive field as restyling. Quoting Wikipedia, Mark is a term useful to "designate a product within a production line: it indicates the level of progress, the degree of development of a machine, and is therefore a synonym for Model, Type, Version." A clarification: although the MKII "addition" is the most common, it is not so uncommon to find a third or fourth stage of a product as well. This will then earn the designation MKIII and MKIV.
How did the term MKII come about?
It is not easy to place chronologically the first use of the word Mark (translatable as "mark," "sign," or even "track"), but one of the earliest fields of application was certainly the military. Here it is easy to see what the meaning of MKII is. In both the United Kingdom and the United States, Mark referred to a mark, precisely, applied to the modification plate of a system, component or machine. This modification plate is a metal plate useful for recording what modifications have already been made, either directly at the factory or by maintainers. However, the use of Mark as a method of distinguishing the version of a product has come into common use, and is applicable even to products without a modification plate on which to affix a physical mark.
United Kingdom vs. United States
In British military practice, Mark designations are denoted in Roman numerals. These often denote the sub-model of a main variant denoted by the term "Number." Thus we will have Number 1 rifle, Number 2 rifle, and so on to distinguish macrocategories, with Mark designations to designate more specific categories. The end results may sound like this, "Number 1 Mark III," or even "Number 4 Mark II." One exception is the British Railway, which relies on Arabic numerals-the coaches it produces are in fact designated as Mk1, Mk2, and so on.
The U.S. Navy, on the other hand, uses the terms "Mark" and "Mod" as an unambiguous method of identifying equipment configurations otherwise lacking military descriptions. The practice was adopted by Naval Ordnance in 1944 and was formalized in 1978. Because the classification system comes from Naval Ordnance, its use is widespread to describe naval guns and other similar warfare systems.
The concept: some examples
As we wrote in our short article discovering the meaning of MKII, MKIII, and so on, the term became established in the military. But then it became widely used elsewhere as well. Remaining in the wartime sphere, we can cite the Mark I combat tank of the British Army, via the Mark II, an electromechanical computer of the U.S. Navy; the tragically famous Mark 4 of the United States Air Force, an atomic bomb used to strike Nagasaki; and the GMLS Mark 13, a guided missile launch system of the U.S. Navy. Examples along these lines could be numerous.
However, the Mark wording has also caught on in the field of cars and transportation. One thinks of the Ford GT40 series, which went all the way up to the MKIV model, and some Toyota cars, such as the MR2 (up to MKIII), but also of a less conventional vehicle such as the monorail at Walt Disney World in Florida. To top it off, the Mark acronym is also found in photography (the Canon EOS-1D SLR) and electronics (with some BMW navigation systems and some IBM computers).
What about the significance in audio and Hi-Fi?
The Mark acronym also and especially appears in the audio and music fields-not least because, otherwise, we would not be talking about it here. Under the Mark label are not only reported restyling of electronics, but also of musical instruments, such as Rhodes pianos, Selmer saxophones, and Mesa Boogie guitar amplifiers. Ricable also has some "MKII" products in its catalog; but that's not all, because we will soon release the MKII version of the Speaker Primus Speaker cable, while a new Dedalus will bridge the gap between the "old" Dedalus and theInvictus Speaker Reference. In this case it will not be a revision but a true new model. More news is coming soon. In the meantime, take a look at our current catalog!
